Sunscreen. There was that bottle of sunscreen on the deck beside Paul Vecchio’s dead body, as if he’d been applying sunscreen when he got shot.
Except you didn’t put on sunscreen at the end of the day, which was when Vecchio had gone to Calhoun’s house. So he’d left it there for a different reason. It was a message for Calhoun from a man who realized he was about to be killed.
The gear bag. That’s what had been nagging at the edges of Calhoun’s memory for the past few days. Paul Vecchio had left his gear bag in the boat that day.
Maybe that’s why he came to Calhoun’s house. He wanted to retrieve his L.L.Bean bag, which was still in the boat, trailered there in the yard.
That’s when he got murdered.
So why hadn’t he called Calhoun at the shop or at home, told him he’d forgotten his bag, and arranged for Calhoun to get it back to him? Why had he come all the way to Calhoun’s house in Dublin? What was in the bag that was so important that he couldn’t wait to get it back ?
He rewound the scene and replayed it, and he heard Vecchio tell him what he kept in his gear bag. Windbreaker, camera, pliers, fish knife, boxes of flies, dry socks, sunscreen, insect repellent.
He took out the camera before he stored the bag in the compartment under the seat. He used the sunscreen in the boat.
If the killer was after something in the bag, then Vecchio hadn’t told Calhoun everything, because nobody committed murder for a pair of socks or a box of flies.
Well, if the bag wasn’t in the boat now, it meant the killer had taken it.
If it was still there in the waterproof compartment under the middle seat, Calhoun would open it up and see if it contained something of particular and unusual value to Paul Vecchio, and maybe to his killer.
Or maybe the bag had nothing to do with his getting killed. Coming to Calhoun’s isolated house to retrieve it just created a convenient opportunity for the killer.
No. Vecchio had dropped that bottle of sunscreen on the deck to remind Calhoun about his gear bag.
Calhoun turned on the light beside his bed, got up, and pulled on his pants.
Ralph, who was curled on the floor at the foot of the bed, lifted his head and blinked at him.
“Go back to sleep,” said Calhoun. “I’ll be right back.”
He turned on the floodlights, went down to where his boat was parked, and lifted the lid of the middle seat. Paul Vecchio’s L.L. Bean gear bag was there.
He took it out and carried it back up to the house. He put it on the kitchen table, opened it up, and put everything he found inside on the table.
Socks, fly boxes, sunscreen, insect repellent, rolled-up wind-breaker, pliers, fish knife.
He picked up each item, looked at it, turned it over, put it back on the table.
When he unrolled the windbreaker, he found a wrinkled scrap of notebook paper tucked inside.
He smoothed the paper on the table.
Keelhaul Albie 9/6 9:00 was written on it.
The letters were slightly blurred, as if they’d been exposed to dampness, but clearly legible, printed with a black felt-tip pen.
He turned the paper over. On the reverse side was an abstract design scratched with a pencil. It was a big inverted letter 17, like an upside-down bowl or an umbrella, with a dozen or more crudely shaped roundish blobs of various sizes scattered around the paper as if they’d spilled from the bowl. Four of the little blobs had X’s crossed through them.
Calhoun looked at it. It didn’t mean anything to him. Just a big upside-down U and a bunch of shapeless circles.
He figured it probably meant something to Paul Vecchio.
He flipped the paper over again. Keelhaul Albie, it said, with what appeared to be a date and time—9/6 9:00. That would be September 6, nine o—clock. He counted back. The sixth was the Saturday before he took Paul Vecchio fishing. Exactly a week after the ME said Errol Watson had been killed.
Vecchio, Calhoun remembered, had called the shop Sunday afternoon, the seventh, to arrange their trip., and he’d talked to Kate. Calhoun recalled her telling him about her conversation with this new client. He’d told her he was really eager to go, hoped to go out that same day, if possible, or Monday would be good. Said he didn’t care whether he went with Kate or Calhoun. Kate had explained that it was too late to go out Sunday and they were closed on Monday, so Tuesday was the first date that anybody was available for guiding, and that it was Calhoun’s turn.
Maybe this scrap of paper wasn’t connected in any way to what happened to Paul Vecchio, but it was the closest thing to a clue anybody had come up with so far.
Was fetching this piece of paper the reason Paul Vecchio had come to Calhoun’s house? Was it what got him killed?
Keelhaul Albie?
Was Calhoun’s fishing trip with Paul Vecchio on Tuesday the ninth the result of somebody named Albie getting keelhauled on Saturday the sixth at nine o—clock?’
Keelhauling was a traditional form of punishment at sea. It was way more severe than tying a misbehaving sailor to the mast and lashing him. To keelhaul a man, you tied ropes to his arms and legs and lowered him over the bow, and the crew held the ropes taut so that the victim was spreadeagled, and they walked back to the stern, dragging the poor outstretched bastard under the vessel, scraping him along the keel.
Victims of keelhauling who didn’t drown first generally died from having their flesh flayed off by barnacles.
Maybe “keelhaul” was figurative. Maybe it just meant: Punish Albie severely and cruelly. Or maybe it meant kill. Keelhauling was usually fatal.
So who was Albie? Had he been keelhauled—or punished in some way, or killed’on Saturday, September 6, at nine o—clock?
And what, if anything, did that have to do with going fishing on Tuesday ?
Errol Watson had been punished cruelly and severely, but being incinerated was nothing like being keelhauled.
Well, Paul Vecchio was a college professor. He probably liked metaphors and figurative language.
Another thought: “Albie” was what fishermen sometimes called false albacore, the small schooling tuna that occasionally appeared in the coastal waters off Maine and, more abundantly, around Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard. Albies—and their cousins the bonito’ were especially prized by fly fishermen.
But keelhauling a fish? That made no sense.
He waited until eight thirty to call the sheriff. He didn’t want to interrupt the man’s breakfast and hoped he would catch him after he was done in the bathroom.
Jane answered and said her damn workaholic husband, who’d been out till after midnight the previous night, had already left for the office, and you could probably catch him on his cell.
So Calhoun picked up his cell phone, pressed the button on the side, and said, “Dickman.” After a couple of rings, the sheriff said, “Stoney? What’s up?”
“I got something to show you.”
“What kind of something?”
“It’s this piece of paper I found in Paul Vecchio’s L. L.Bean gear bag, which he left in my boat. It’s got writing on one side and some kind of abstract design on the other side, and I’m thinking he came to my house to fetch it, and I think he dropped that bottle of sunscreen to remind me about his gear bag, and it might be connected to him getting killed.”
“Piece of paper, huh?”
“A scrap of notebook paper, yes.”
“A clue, eh, Sherlock?”
“You don’t need to be sarcastic with me,” said Calhoun.
“Sorry, Stoney. That is what you’re thinking, though, right? This piece of paper’s some kind of clue?”
“Ayuh. That is what I was thinking.”
“You’re right. It might be.” The sheriff hesitated. “Okay, look. I’m just pulling into the parking lot at the state police headquarters. Got a big meeting with Lieutenant Gilsum and his crew. Enfield, the DA, he’s going to be there, too. They want my report on our meeting with Franklin Dunbar. We’re all supposed to be comp
aring notes, getting reorganized and coordinated. I don’t know how long it’ll take. Gilsum does love his damn meetings, and he will no doubt want to do some showing off for Enfield. What can you tell me about this piece of paper?”
Calhoun told him what it said and tried to describe the design with the upside-down U and the crude shapes, some with X’s drawn through them.
“Hm,” said the sheriff after a minute. “Interesting. I bet you’ve given it some thought, and I want to hear it. Myself, I can’t think about it now. You gonna be at the shop today ?”
“Ten till four,” said Calhoun. “It’s Tuesday.”
“I’ll meet you there. Gotta go.”
Calhoun hit the Off button, hesitated, then shoved the phone
into his pocket. He picked up the deputy badge, bounced it in the palm of his hand for a minute, then stuck that in his pocket, too. He wasn’t sure anymore if he was going to quit. It all depended on whether he’d be able to focus on the Paul Vecchio case.
He was definitely done with the Errol Watson investigation.
He folded Vecchio’s scrap of notebook paper and stuck it in his shirt pocket. Then he poured himself a travel mug full of coffee and took it, along with Paul Vecchio’s gear bag, down to his truck. He stuck the gear bag in the back, hitched up his boat, opened the driver’s door so Ralph could jump in, and headed for the shop in Portland.
He wanted to keep the boat handy to the water. He had that fishing trip with Dr. Sam Surry coming up on Friday, and maybe they’d pick up another trip before that. Maybe someone would even call wanting to go out today. He could park the boat in the lot beside the shop and be ready.
He got there a little before ten. Kate had already opened up. She was at her desk in the back office talking on the phone when Calhoun walked in. She arched her eyebrows and wiggled her fingers and gave him a quick smile, then looked down at something she was reading on her desk.
Calhoun felt a familiar tingle. It was nice to see Kate smile, however briefly. She hadn’t been doing much smiling lately.
Ralph went over and lay down beside her. She reached down and gave his shoulder a scratch.
Calhoun poured himself a mug of coffee and took it up front to the counter. He opened the trip book and wrote in Dr. Surry’s name for four o—clock on Friday. There were no other trips scheduled before or after that.
He was tying some more landlocked salmon featherwing streamers when Kate came out of her office. She stopped by the fly-tying bench, watched Calhoun for a minute, then said, “We ran low on your Deceivers and sand eels this year, you know. People really liked them. Maybe you can make more of them for next season?”
He looked up at her. “You saying I shouldn’t be tying these streamers for the Boston boys ?”
“I was saying no such thing,” she said.
He shrugged. “My mistake.”
“You seem kind of cranky this morning, Stoney. You okay?”
He wanted to say: I am not okay. I don’t like pretending that nothing’s wrong between us. I don’t like it that I can’t even hope you’ll come to my house some night. I don’t like thinking that we are over with.
What he said was: “I’m fine. This business of working with the sheriff is kind of stressful, that’s all.”
“Making any progress?”
“I don’t know.”
She touched his shoulder for a moment, then went behind the counter.
His shoulder tingled where she’d touched him.
A few minutes later, from behind the counter, Kate said, “You booked yourself a trip, I see.”
“Friday afternoon,” he said. “Half a day.”
“Dr. Sam Surry. That cute redhead, huh?”
He looked up at her. He didn’t know how he was supposed to answer. If he said yes, would that mean that he agreed that Dr. Surry was cute?
Kate had her elbows on the counter with her chin in her hands, looking at him, neither smiling nor frowning. “We take turns, Stoney,” she said. “You know that’s our rule. You had the last trip. This one should be mine.”
“Dr. Surry specifically asked me to take her out,” said Calhoun. “What was I supposed to say?”
“We’ve been over this before,” she said. “You don’t get to take out who you want and refuse to take out who you don’t want. That’s not professional. That’s not how we agreed to do it.”
“It was her who asked to go out with me,” he said. “Not the other way around.”
“Hard to blame her, charming rogue like you.” Kate was not smiling. “She’ll have way more fun with you, I’m sure.”
“You want me to tell her you’ll be the one taking her out instead of me?” he said. “I can do that.”
She smiled quickly. “Oh, we wouldn’t want to disappoint the client. I bet she’s a big fan of yours.”
“It’s not like we’ve got all these trips lined up,” said Calhoun.
Kate narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s for God damn sure.” She slammed the trip book shut, turned, stalked back to her office at the rear of the shop, and kicked the door closed behind her.
Calhoun was at the front counter talking on the phone with the Simms sales rep, listening to what he had to say about next year’s line of breathable waders, when Kate came out of her office, where she’d been holed up all morning. She stood there pretending to straighten out the display of rain gear until Calhoun hung up. Then she said, “You want a sandwich or something?”
“Sure. Tuna would be great. Onions and lettuce. Whole wheat bread.”
She smiled. “I guess I know what you like on your tunafish sandwiches.”
You know as much about me as I do, he wanted to say. You know every square inch of my skin. You know how my crazy brain works. I have no secrets from you.
Instead, he said, “Why don’t you bring Ralph with you? He’s been cooped up all morning.”
She gave him a little smile that did not reach up to her eyes. “I’m sorry, Stoney. About how I’ve been acting. It’s me, not you. I’m the cranky one.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “How’s Walter doing?”
She gave her head a quick shake. “He gets a little worse each day.”
“Tell him hello for me.”
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll do that.”
Calhoun and Kate were sitting on the front steps of the shop finishing up their sandwiches and Cokes and enjoying the midday September sunshine when the sheriff’s Explorer pulled into the lot.
Ralph, who had been lying there attentively, alert for errant sandwich crumbs, got to his feet and trotted over to the Explorer.
The sheriff climbed out, leaned over, gave Ralph a pat, then went over to where Calhoun and Kate were sitting. He touched the brim of his hat, nodded to Kate, said, “Ma’am,” and turned to Calhoun. “You going to be free around five today, Deputy?”
“We close up at four,” said Calhoun. “Anytime after that.”
“I’ll shoot for sooner,” said the sheriff, “but it’ll likely be sometime after five.”
“I’ll be here,” said Calhoun, “unless you want me to help you interrogate families whose daughter has been raped and molested, in which case you’ll find me back home stacking firewood, and don’t bother comin’ after me.”
The sheriff glanced at Kate, who seemed to be watching them with an amused little smile playing around her mouth. Then he turned back to Calhoun and nodded. “I do understand, Stoney.”
“I’m pretty interested in what happened to Paul Vecchio,” said Calhoun, “but I’ve lost interest in what happened to Errol Watson. I decided I ain’t going to work on that case anymore. I just want you to know that.”
“Watson was an evil man, all right,” said the sheriff. “That doesn’t make murdering him okay.”
Calhoun shrugged.
“Anyway,” said the sheriff, “you’re off the hook. Lieutenant Gilsum figures he’s got what he needs to close that case. He wanted me to tell you he appreciates your good work.”
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“Franklin Dunbar?”
The sheriff looked at his watch. “As we speak, with the blessing of District Attorney Enfield himself, Gilsum is hauling Mr. Dunbar and his wife and son in for questioning, reading them their rights, and getting warrants to search their house, with particular emphasis on the family computer. Also their boat and car.”
Calhoun shook his head. “You know as well as I do that Dunbar couldn’t do something like that.”
“I know no such thing.” The sheriff smiled. “Anyway, that right there is the best reason I can think of for you not to quit on me.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Around four, Kate said she was leaving for the day, going to go visit Walter. Calhoun was sitting at the fly-tying bench, still turning out landlocked salmon streamers for the Boston guys. He reminded her to say hello to Walter for him.
She looked at him for a minute, then nodded and gave him a tiny little smile. She scootched down and patted Ralph, straightened up, waved her hand, and left.
Calhoun got up, put on the classical music station, and went back to tying flies. Some time later he felt a vibration against his leg. He fished out his cell phone, hit the green button, put it to his ear, and said, “Sheriff? That you? Everything okay?”
“I’m just leaving this damn meeting,” said the sheriff. “Sorry it’s so late. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes. Don’t go anywhere.”
“What time is it, anyway?” said Calhoun.
“After six.”
“What—”
“Don’t ask.”
When the sheriff came in, he said, “I could use a drink.” Somewhere along the way he’d changed out of his uniform. Now he wore a red-and-black-checked flannel shirt, baggy blue jeans, and a black windbreaker, no hat covering his bald head.
“I got Coke,” said Calhoun. “Coffee’s still hot.”
“That’s not what I had in mind, but I’ll take a Coke.”
Calhoun went to the refrigerator in back, fetched two cans of Coke, and brought them to the front of the shop. The sheriff had pulled a chair up to the fly-tying bench. He was looking at the flies Calhoun had tied. They were lined up neatly, stuck into the foam strip along the side of the bench while their laquered heads dried.
Gray Ghost Page 19
